July

The stench of rotten food wafting from the dumpster filled the darkened alley. Steve Burgess pressed himself against the brick wall of a building. He tried to believe he was invisible. He was in a bad part of the city in the middle of the night. He felt nauseous. He was sweating. It was a warm New Orleans night. That had nothing to do with it. He would have been sweating if it was snowing. He would have been nauseous without the dumpster.

The door was opened by a blonde man so large as to occupy the frame. With close cropped hair and no noticeable neck, he was a mass of muscle. Burgess was a big man, too. But unlike the young giant filling the doorway, he was an overweight, out of shape cop on the down side of middle age. At least he had been a cop. Now he wasn’t. Now he was nothing. A frightened man hiding in an alley.

Trent Marshall, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, almost got Burgess sent to prison a few years ago. Three of Burgess’ colleagues did go to jail. Six others were fired. Burgess didn’t get indicted or lose his job, but he was demoted. More recently Marshall humiliated Burgess in front of his boss, Detective Lieutenant Jordan Baron.

After that incident, Burgess went to a bar and got drunk. He was still on duty. He didn’t care.

Late that afternoon he found himself stumbling down the sidewalk across the street from Marshall’s house in the Vieux Carre’. He had intended to do nothing but shout a curse and raise a middle finger. But just at that moment the pedestrian gate in the brick wall enclosing the old house and its courtyard opened. Marshall and his girlfriend stepped into view. Something came over Burgess. Something he could not control. Without really knowing how it got there, he found a revolver in his hand. He fired two shots across the street, narrowly missing them. As they ducked back through the gate seeking the protection of the bricks, he staggered out of sight as quickly as he could.

He didn’t use his service weapon. He used the hideout most officers carried. His was a snub nose .32. Baron made him turn over both weapons for ballistics testing. Knowing what the results would be, Burgess said he was going to the men’s room. He didn’t go to the men’s room. He walked down the hall and out the back door. He didn’t go to his apartment. He did his best to disappear. Now he was a former cop on the run. He needed help. He came to the only place he knew.

“He’ll see you now,” the young man said. His voice was surprisingly soft. Burgess was certain that was the only thing about him that was.

“Thanks,” Burgess said as he moved to the door.

The young man turned and walked away. Burgess hurried to follow him, already out of breath. He was led to a private dining room off the kitchen. A well-dressed, older man sat at a table dining alone. A simple meal. Bratwurst on a bun with Creole mustard accompanied by potato salad.

“Thank you, Gart,” the man said.

Gart didn’t leave. He stood near the door. Behind Burgess.

The older man took the last bite of bratwurst. He wiped a bit of mustard off his lips with a white cloth napkin. Only then did he look at Burgess.

“I hear you’re in trouble, Steve,” he said. “Big trouble this time.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied politely. He clearly knew the older man was the alpha male.

“And now you come to me.”

“Yes, sir,” the former cop replied. “You always treated me good.”

“What do you need from me now?”

“I have to get out of town,” Burgess said. “I need money and a place to go where there might be a friend.”

“Why shouldn’t I just have Gart break your neck and toss your body in the river?” the older man asked.

“You could do that,” Burgess replied nervously, beginning to sweat again. “But that could bring complications. You never know when a mistake might be made. A mistake that could lead cops in the wrong direction.”

“You know better than to threaten me, Steve.”

“I would never threaten you, sir,” the former cop said. “I’m just pointing out that it’s less complicated to help me relocate. A small amount of cash and a suggestion about where I might go. Nothing that would ever connect us.”

“Is that all?”

“I would ask one more small favor, sir,” Burgess said. “And again this is something that could never lead back to you.”

The older man raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“I’d like to get in touch with Jimmy Shadow.”

The older man was surprised by that request though he didn’t let it show on his face. He didn’t know if Jimmy Shadow was still working. He was seventy-five himself and Jimmy had to be at least his age. He was one of the best hit men in the business in his day. It was his talent for accomplishing a hit using methods that made it difficult, often impossible, to figure out the cause of death that earned him his pseudonym.

That and the fact that he was never seen. No one knew what he looked like. No one knew what he sounded like. No one knew his real name. No one knew for sure whether Jimmy Shadow was a man or a woman. Communication with Jimmy Shadow was done in the old days with dead drops. The last the man heard Jimmy still used dead drops but in the age of computers had added burst transmissions. Small packets of information sent quickly. Too quickly to be traced by the cops, most of whom didn’t have access to the necessary sophisticated computers.

“That could be asking a lot, Steve,” the older man said. “It could even be dangerous for you. Jimmy was never patient. If Jimmy doesn’t want to be found, you might disappear.”

“Believe me, I know that,” Burgess said.

“You’re not going to give up on this thing are you? You’re going to try again, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I am going to try again.”

The older man considered that. He didn’t want to have Burgess killed. It was never smart to kill a cop. Even a crooked cop. He wouldn’t be sad to see Trent Marshall done in. The investigative reporter had cost the older man money a few times. He had even come close to exposing the man’s power in the city. No, he wouldn’t mind seeing Marshall receive what was due him for the trouble he had caused.

If Burgess was going to try again to kill Marshall, the older man would rather it be somewhere other than New Orleans.

“Where would you like to go, Steve?”

“Marshall has a girlfriend who lives in San Francisco. I wouldn’t mind tracking him down there.”

The man motioned to Gart who moved close to him and leaned over. The man whispered instructions.

“Gart will take care of you, Steve,” the older man said. “I don’t want to see you or hear that you’re in New Orleans ever again.”

“Thank you, sir,” Burgess said nervously, not sure what was meant by Gart taking care of him.

He followed the young man out of the room. Gart told him to wait in the alley. He was gone for ten minutes. When he returned he gave Burgess an envelope containing $15,000 in cash and a slip of paper with a name and phone number. A San Francisco area code.

In the private dining room, the older man made a phone call. When the call was answered, the man’s message was concise.

“A former cop named Steve Burgess will be calling. He has been of some service to me in the past. I would consider it a favor if you will take his call and assist him if, in your judgment, you think it possible without endangering yourself. He can be useful if you’re inclined to give him a little work from time to time. If you don’t care for what he has to say or what he asks of you, do as you will. I don’t need to know.”

He gave the mobile phone to Gart with instructions to throw it in the river.